Next-Door To Outer Woop-Woop

2

Next-Door To Outer Woop-Woop

    I couldn’t say I hadn’t been warned. Specifically, Jim Hawkes, who’d been out there in person several times, had described Trethewin as “next-door to Outer Woop-Woop.” Australian for “at the back of beyond”—quite.

    The rental car I was driving didn’t help. Air-conditioned, yes. Quite new and very clean, true. Tinny, Japanese, and cramped. Also true. With springs—if it had any—entirely unsuited to the Australian back roads. I got lost three times and had to stop and ask the way five. That didn’t help. Fortunately I had set off in very good time. Jim had kindly provided a map. An A4 print-out from King Google. Yes, well.

    This, I decided at long, long last, must be it! There were no buildings in sight but beyond those tired, dusty trees at the end of a wide, dusty driveway flanked by acres of dried-out fawn grassland, there was discernible a shape that with a great stretch of the imagination might have been the very top of a burnt-out stable block… Those were gum trees, probably. I drew in at the wide five-barred gate, and got out.

    “Good morning, sonny,” I said nicely to the boy who was perched on the second bar of the closed gate.

    He looked at me solemnly over the gate with big, luminous grey eyes. They blinked once beneath a shock of thick, straight blond hair which reached his eyebrows. Ten or eleven? About that. Apparently not the communicative sort.

    “Yeah gidday,” he said at last. No pause between the “yeah” and the “gidday”. Odd.

    “Er—I’m looking for Trethewin,” I ventured.

    More contemplation. There was no indication whether he liked or disliked what he saw.

    “You an insurance man?” he said finally.

    “Uh—no.” Was it my lightweight suit that had suggested I might be? Or the horrid car?

    The eyes narrowed. “Nodda cop, are ya?”

    “No, certainly not.”

    “Didn’t think so,” he declared with a slight sniff.

    “Er—is your dad about, sonny?”

    “Nah. Died in a diving accident when I was three. Can’t even remember ’im. If it’s about school—”

    “Nothing like that,” I said hurriedly.

    “’Cos I’ve had concussion, see!” he announced defiantly.

    “I’m sorry to hear that. Did you have a fall?”

    “Sort of,” he admitted reluctantly. “Anyway, I can’t go back to school till the man gives us some money.”

    I was about to ask what man and thought very, very much better of it. Hell’s teeth, he must be some sort of dependant of Mr Leslie Forrest’s, and “the man” who should be giving them “some money” in that case was me!

    “I’d like to speak to Mr Forrest,” I explained.

    “Gramps isn’t here. –That’s like me Pop, only we call ’im Gramps,” he announced aggressively.

    Er… okay. “I see.” I was about to add that it was Mr Leslie Forrest I wanted when a woman’s voice called loudly: “Gavin, what’s going on?” And a slim female figure in jeans hurried down the wide, dusty driveway towards us.

    As she approached I had to swallow a smile: she was so very like the boy! She must be his mother. The same thick fair hair over the forehead, though where his was merely flopping untidily, hers was a neat fringe. Not clipped short over the ears, I saw as she neared the gate, but pulled neatly back. The wide, limpid grey eyes were the same, though. As were the generous mouth and squarish chin. And the honey-tan shade of the skin. After the pallid English urban faces I was used to they both looked incredibly healthy.

    “He reckons,” said the boy before she could draw breath, “that he’s looking for Trethewin.”

    “They won’t be open yet,” she informed me. “They don’t start selling until eleven.”

    “See, it useda be ten-thirdy,” young Gavin put in, “only no-one come, they’d of hadda drive up from Adelaide, see?”

    I saw only too well. “Er—yes. That would be the winery, I presume?”

    “No, the guided tours are only run on public holidays,” replied the woman.

    Okay, we were talking at cross purposes and could apparently go on doing so until doomsday.

    “I’m actually looking for Mr Leslie Forrest,” I said firmly.

    Silence. They were both looking—disconcerted? Something like that.

    Then Gavin said: “I think he means you, Cassie.”

    She gave me a very wary look. “What exactly do you want?”

    “To speak to Mr Leslie Forrest, the acting manager of Trethewin Stables,” I replied flatly.

    “There isn’t a Mr Leslie Forrest. I’m the acting manager,” she said on a grim note. “And I dunno what stunt you’re trying to pull, Mister, but we’ve had more than we can take these last few months, so you can sling yer hook, or I’m ringing Sergeant Donoghue.”

    “Hey, yeah! He’d come, eh?” the boy put in eagerly, his eyes lighting up. “Like, he was real wild with Tony for nicking all that dough and burning up the—”

    “Shut up, Gavin,” she ordered heavily.

    “Burning up the stables,” he ended uncertainly. “He said just give him the chance to get ’is mitts on—”

    “Yes! We all feel like that, Gavin, just don’t go on about it!”

    He subsided, but eyed me with a sort of wary defiance.

    I still wasn’t too sure what I was faced with. “I’m sorry: I understood that the acting manager was a Leslie Forrest,” I said.

    “Yes! She is!” cried Gavin.

    “You just called her Cassie,” I replied very drily indeed.

    “Yeah—no, she is, but—”

    “Gavin, be—quiet,” she said in steely tones. “Just who are you and what do you want here?”

    By now I didn’t think, really, that any verbal assurances were going to convince her, whoever she was. I felt in my pocket.

    “Look out, maybe he’s got a gun!” the kid gasped.

    “In that suit?” she replied scathingly, giving my casual cream Armani an unpleasant look. “Don’t be stupid, you can see he hasn’t, it’d show.”

    “An automatic’s real flat, though!”

    “Bullshit.”

    “My card,” I said heavily. “I’m Alex Cartwright, I’ve bought Trethewin Stables Proprietary Limited from Ralph Crozier, and I’d quite like to know whether Mr Leslie Forrest is yet another absconding manager.”

    She took the card and looked at it, frowning. “‘Alexander Baines Cartwright’,” she read slowly.

    “Alex, he said,” the boy noted.

    “‘ABC Freight’; it doesn’t say what, though,” she ascertained, the frown deepening.

    “That’s because to all intents and purposes I am ABC Freight. Major shareholder and CEO,” I said tiredly. “Will you for God’s sake tell me what the bloody Hell’s happened to Mr Leslie Forrest so as I get can out of this heat!”

    “Heck, it’s not hot!” cried Gavin in astonishment.

    The young woman swallowed. She was, I could now see, not old enough to be the mother of a ten-year-old, unless she’d had him in her mid-teens—which I supposed was not impossible, though she looked too sensible for that. She was, or would be without the frown, extremely attractive. The very blonde pulled-back hair was in a heavy plait down her back and the simple checked shirt she wore tucked into the jeans didn’t disguise a very nice figure.

    “Um, he’s English, Gavin, I suppose it is hot to him,” she said in a small voice.

    “Ye-ah… He talks like a Pom, eh?” he recognised.

    “Yes, but don’t say Pom in front of him, it’s rude. Englishman.”

    “Aw,” was the reply.

    “If you don’t believe me,” I said wearily, “ring Crozier.”

    She took a deep breath which, hot and cross though I was, I appreciated to the full. “Um, yeah, I will. We’ve been taken for a ride by a bloody con-man once too often.”

    “Very wise,” I said neutrally.

    Giving me an uncertain look, she produced a mobile phone. During the course of the subsequent conversation my unremarkable person got several sharp looks and she confirmed such points as: “About six foot, yeah,” and: “No, quite slim. Dark hair.”

    … “Um, yeah,” she concluded, having now gone very red. “Um, thanks, Ralph. No, it’s all good, thanks. I just hadda make sure, after bloody Tony Brownloe. –Do ya? Well, you went ahead and sold the place, Ralph. –Milly? Of course she’s all right! They’re all fine. Well, thanks again. See ya.” With this she rang off.

    “Um, yeah. Sorry, Mr Cartwright,” she said, still very flushed. “I hadda make sure, ya see. I am the acting manager. I’m Leslie Cassandra Forrest, actually, but I’ve always been called Cassie.”

    “See?” said the kid, vindicated.

    “Yes,” I admitted. “I’m terribly sorry, Ms Forrest: I was misled by the way you spell your name, I’m afraid.” She was looking blank, so I found myself idiotically explaining: “In England it’s usually L,E,S,L,E,Y for a girl, L,E,S,L,I,E for a boy.”

    “Weird,” noted Gavin, eyeing me narrowly.

    “Just shut up, Gavin,” she sighed. “Um, you’d better come up to the house, Mr Cartwright. –Get off the gate, Gavin, and let him through.”

    Instead of obeying he immediately asked me: “C’n I go in your car?”

    “No! Do as you’re told for once in your life!” she cried.

    He glared, but scrambled off the gate and helped her to swing it open.

    I got back into the car and drove slowly in the indicated direction, feeling ten times of a fool. Not to say extremely annoyed with—everyone, really. Certainly with my lawyers, Crozier’s lawyers, Crozier, and even Jim Hawkes. Why hadn’t someone mentioned that it was Ms Leslie, female, and not— Oh, the Hell with it! The best thing would be just to sell the bloody place and be done with it!

    What I met at the top of what passed for the driveway didn’t encourage me to change my mind. Past the belt of dusty trees—they were gums—a black, burnt-out wreck was visible to the right. Further on, to the left, was what was presumably the house mentioned by Ms Leslie Forrest, known as Cassie. A small, unlovely wooden bungalow, painted a nasty shade of dirty green, surmounted by a dull grey corrugated steel roof, and without a skerrick of garden to soften its uncompromising block-like shape. A sort of path composed of broken slabs of concrete serving as stepping-stones led up to its unlovely front door, surprisingly not the dirty greenish shade, but a grimy dark tan. Er, possibly the grey side of tan. Ugh. I parked the car and waited.

    Possibly recriminations had been going on further down the driveway. At any rate, the ubiquitous Gavin appeared rather subdued, and though he watched the proceedings avidly, mercifully refrained from speech for quite some time.

    … Yes, well. At least they gave me a cold drink. Rose’s lime cordial, the same as the stuff we got at home—I experienced a certain disconnect at this point. Rather like finding oneself down the rabbit-hole. One’s head tending to float ten inches or so behind one’s shoulders, kind of thing. The drink was rather weak and laden with ice. I didn’t object. Gavin was told firmly before he could open his mouth that he couldn’t have a Coke. Good for Ms Forrest.

    The little bungalow was incredibly hot and stuffy, though Gavin officiously switched on a large ceiling fan, the sort I’d hitherto only seen in the Caribbean. It did help, a bit. The sitting-room into which I was ushered was painted a dark cream and furnished with what looked like leftovers from an auction. Nothing matched. The sofa was a cheap-looking grey modern thing covered in some wool substitute. One of the two armchairs was a huge, puffy brown fake-leather relic of the ’80s. The other was even older—1940s or even ’30s? It had three-inch-wide heavy bentwood arms in what was possibly oak and was covered in a dull grey plush fabric with a small pattern of reddish indiscernible somethings. A large fake-leather pouffe featured segments of cream, brown and tan, the total effect extremely nasty, but Gavin kindly sat on it, covering the worst up. Over by the far wall was a small Formica-topped dining table with four chairs: three tall, dark, ladderback things, clearly from a set, and one aged bentwood of the sort that often has a cane seat. This one had a homemade cushion. Green. There was no carpet, just tired floorboards which clearly hadn’t seen a lick of polish since they’d been slathered in a forbidding dark varnish, in, at a guess, 1950. No fireplace. A large electric fire was shoved into a corner. No, well, they certainly wouldn’t need it for most of the year, if it was already this hot in October—that’d be the equivalent of our April! The windows featured elderly cream Venetians and truly awful ancient linen curtains which must once have been someone’s pride and joy. Large cabbage roses, faded to Kingdom Come.

    It was, Ms Forrest explained redundantly, the manager’s house, but Tony Brownloe had never been interested in using it: he’d let them have it, he had lived over the stables. At this point Gavin opened his mouth, thought better of it, and shut it again.

    She was keen to show me the accounts she’d been religiously keeping since Brownloe’s fugue, so I let her, though as there’d been no cash left to embezzle, I wasn’t worried. The amount I’d told the lawyers to forward to her was… negligible. Oh.

    “Ms Forrest, Gavin mentioned that he can’t go back to school until the man gives you some money. What do you need?”

    She went very red and awarded the kid a glare. “It’s not school fees, it’s just the local primary school. It’s not the school itself.”

    “And?”

    “It’s the petrol,” she admitted. “It’s a fair drive from here.”

    “Everything is,” I said, drier than I’d meant to sound.

    “Um—yes. More or less. There’s a bus, but it doesn’t come this way, there are no other families out here.”

    “Yes, I understand, Ms Forrest. In that case presumably you’re scraping to maintain the stables, too. Why didn’t you get in touch with my lawyers immediately?”

    “Um, they already sent me the money,” she said, looking bewildered.

    “That was— Never mind,” I said heavily. My head was definitely floating behind my shoulders: two feet behind, at least. “Let me have another look at those accounts, please.”

    Looking anxious, she handed them back.

    I scanned them carefully, this time not looking for the names of the local suppliers, but…

    “There are no wages going out,” I said limply.

    “Um, no, they all left after the stud was disbanded,” she replied in bewildered tones.

    I damn’ nearly shouted at her. “Ms Forrest, what the Hell have you been eating?”

    She gaped at me.

    “Spaghetti, mainly,” said Gavin helpfully, uttering for the first time.

    No-one else spoke, so he added: “She makes good bread. And damper!” he added on a proud note.

    Not asking what in God’s name he meant by this last, let alone why anyone would require their bread to be damp at all, though, true, it was a very dry climate, I said heavily: “Ms Forrest, there are no wages for you in these accounts!”

    “Um, no, I’m only looking after the place temporarily,” she said, again sounding bewildered.

    “Jesus,” I said limply.

    “Like, Tony, he was the real manager,” put in Gavin helpfully.

    “Um, yes,” she agreed.

    I had barely got my breath back, but I found myself saying tightly: “The labourer is worthy of his hire: haven’t you got that saying in Australia? –Excuse me.” I produced my phone.

    Gavin leaned forward eagerly. “Gee, have you got an iPhone? Far—out!”

    “Ssh!” hissed Ms Forrest.

    He glared, but shut up.

    On due consideration I rang Jim Hawkes rather than the Sydney lawyers who’d acted for me in the sale and had been supposed to be keeping an eye on what went on at Trethewin. True, it was a long way away. Also true, after the experience of Mr Ames I sincerely doubted that an Adelaide firm would have done better.

    Sure enough, Jim told me in a trice what Brownloe’s official wage had been. Yes, per fortnight, he’d wanted it that way. Before I could say sourly yes, much more convenient than monthly if one wanted to do a flit, he’d pointed it out himself. I thanked him, was told no worries and any time, and he rang off with the customary: “See ya!”

    Then I did a few sums in my head.

    “What?” gulped Ms Forrest, as I revealed the sum I owed her in back wages.

    “He-ey! Far—out!” cried Gavin.

    “Yes. That’s what the job pays: that’s the rate Brownloe got,” I said grimly. “Why in God’s name you didn’t— Forget it.” Unfortunately I wasn’t carrying much Australian cash. “Er—look, give me the details of your bank account and I’ll arrange a transfer immediately, to cover the back wages and further expenses, based on these accounts, for the next month. Plus anything else that you need money for immediately.” The thought occurred that she wouldn’t let on, just start scrimping again. “That’d be extra, of course. What do you need?”

    “Ice cream,” said Gavin immediately.

    “Shut UP, Gavin!” she cried.

    “But we haven’t had ice cream for ages and ages, not since Gran an’ Gramps went down to Adelaide! –See, they’re looking for a retirement place; Gramps, he’s retired now,” he informed me.

    “Er—yes. So they used to live here, too?” –The house didn’t seem nearly big enough for all of them. Though, true, that appalling dining table did seat four.

    The floodgates had definitely opened, and Gavin was himself again. He burst into further speech. “Not here, up at the big house, of course, ’cos see, Gran, she was ole Mr Crozier’s housekeeper and Ralph, he said of course they could stay on, only that Leanne, she said they didn’t need her no more but Ralph, he got real cross with her an’ said they did. An’ Gramps, see, he done the garden and stuff. –Fixed stuff,” he ended on a vague note.

    “The—the house took a fair amount of upkeep and so did the garden, it’s lovely, Mr Cartwright,” said Ms Forrest in a trembling voice. “Quite a showplace, really, it’s been in the Open Gardens scheme.”

    I wasn’t interested in the house, of course, but I said nicely: “I see.”

    “And—and Mrs Crozier doesn’t like you to call her Leanne, Gavin: ’member?” she added shakily.

    “Huh!” he replied scornfully. “So when c’n we have the ice cream, Mr Cartwright?” he added avidly.

    I couldn’t have said why, but suddenly I made up my mind. “Now,” I said firmly. “We’ll go into the city, I’ll arrange for that bank transfer, and set up an account for the stables with you as signatory, Ms Forrest, and we’ll have ice cream there.”

    Gavin beamed. “Yay! –And lunch?”

    I looked at my watch. It felt like half-past forty-two, frankly. It was ten past ten. True, I had set out at six-thirty… “Yes, definitely lunch, Gavin.”

    “Ace!” A cunning look came into his wide grey eyes. “McDonald’s?”

    Ugh! Perhaps my dismay showed in my face, as Ms Forrest said faintly: “No, Gavin, adults don’t like it.”

    “But it’s ace! –See, they got a Wendy’s, too: they got the best ice creams, see; it’s kind of in the same, um, place,” he informed me illuminatingly.

    “Like a—a mall, I suppose,” she said.

    His brow creased. “It’s got corners, though.”

    “Mm. I think it’s a mall. –Um, well, you can walk through from one street to the other, Mr Cartwright, and there are quite a few little eating places there.”

    “Yes, but still corners,” he objected.

    “Um, yes.” She looked at me expectantly,

    Okay, since we were all down the rabbit-hole! “It sounds like a mall to me,” I agreed. “Covered, is it?”

    “Covered? Oh! I see what you mean. Yes, it’s on the ground floor. I think it’s offices above.”

    “Definitely a mall.”—Why were we having this conversation?—“Well?” I added, smiling.

    She looked completely bewildered. “Whuh-what?”

    “Does that agenda meet with your approval?”

    “Um, luh-lunch in town?” she fumbled.

    “Yes. And setting up a bank account for you.”

    “Mr Cartwright, you don’t understand! It takes ages and you have to have the right papers and—and everything! They make you bring official stuff addressed to you, I mean, the electricity account or something, they won’t believe you’re who you say you are otherwise, and then you have to have the right number of stupid points, it’s absolutely awful! And even if they accept you nothing happens; it’ll take at least a fortnight for the credit card to arrive! I mean, they say ten working days, only if you work it out that’s a fortnight and they never seem to count the week you go in and—and—it wuh-won’t work!” she wailed, suddenly bursting into tears.

    “Heck!” cried Gavin in dismay. “Don’t cry, Cassie! It’s all right! The man’s gonna give you money!”

    “That’s right,” I agreed. “Gavin, could you run and fetch a box of tissues, please?”

    “Like, to blow her nose? There aren’t any, she said they were a—a unjust-somethink expense.”

    “Well—uh—paper towels: kitchen towels?”

    His face fell. “They’re a unjust expense, too.”

    “Then a tea-towel, okay?”

    “Yeah!” he agreed in relief, rushing out.

    I looked at the sobbing Cassie Forrest, bit my lip, and sat down next to her on the null grey sofa. “Don’t cry,” I said feebly. “Everything’s okay. I can promise you you’ll have cash in hand by the time Gavin’s gulped down his third dish of ice cream.”

    She sniffed juicily. “Codes,” she said groggily.

    “Er…”

    “Weddy’s. Codes,” she said, sniffing again.

    “Oh! –Have my handkerchief, for a start,” I said, as Gavin hadn’t reappeared. “The ice cream comes in cones, eh?”

    “Mm.” She nodded, the tears slipping down her cheeks.

    “Good show, we’ll all have cones. Blow your nose.”

    She blew and mopped, but the tears kept coming. The handkerchief was soon soaked. So much for the bloody Burlington Arcade.

    “What were you doing: weaving it?” I sighed as the kid finally reappeared, waving a flag-like article.

    “Nah! All on—line!” he panted.

    “Uh—oh. Sorry. Well done,” I said feebly. “Come on, Ms Forrest, stop crying, everything’s okay.” I patted her gingerly on the back.

    “It’s okay, Cassie, he’ll give ya money!” urged Gavin as she looked in a kind of dull surprise at the tea-towel, but mopped her eyes with it.

    After a few moments the tears dried up, thank God.

    “Everything’s going to be all right,” I said firmly. “Go and wash your face and get ready. I’m going to ring my Sydney lawyers and get them to put me in touch with a reliable solicitor in Adelaide, who’ll come with us to the bank and help us talk to the bank manager. They may not be able to get a credit card sent out immediately, but I can guarantee that you’ll have an operable bank account before close of work today.”

    “They’ll never do it,” she said faintly.

    “Money talks, Ms Forrest. If necessary I’ll get in touch with the bank’s head office in Sydney, but I really don’t think I’ll need to go that far.”

    She got up slowly. “I still don’t think it’ll work. They’re all Little Hitlers. And—and it’s no use thinking you can take some money out with your credit card, Mr Cartwright, ’cos they’ll only let you have five hundred at a time.”

    “That’s a lot,” said Gavin.

    “Not for the stables, dear. But—well, it’d be nice to have lunch in town,” she admitted. “Go to the toilet and wash your hands. Are your other sneakers clean?”

    “Um, dunno” being the expectable reply, she merely sighed and said: “Well, go on.”

    “You, too,” I said, smiling at her as I got my phone out again.

    “Yes. Just don’t expect too much. This isn’t London,” she said weakly, vanishing.

    It certainly wasn’t London, no, but money talks Downunder, too, I discovered without surprise. The Sydney lawyers fell over themselves to help and were horrified that Miss—Er—hadn’t applied for more funds when she needed them—obviously terrified I was going to blame them and withdraw my custom—and the fruity-voiced Adelaide lawyer who rang me back within ten minutes also fell over himself to be helpful. Of course, Mr Cartwright, no problem! Where was I staying? The Hyatt? Splendid, he could meet me there— Oh. Then say around one? We could lunch and— I vetoed that one: a prior appointment. Would two suit him? Of course, Mr Cartwright! It was, apparently, a pleasure to do business with me. I rang off experiencing a very strong impulse to send the bill which would undoubtedly be forthcoming to Jim Hawkes for Clarysse to cast her eagle eye over: the fellow sounded like a practised bill-padder if ever there was one. Never mind: in the scheme of things it was peanuts, and it’d be well worth it to stop Cassie crying again!

    Er—Ms Forrest, of course.

    … “Over there!” screamed a not noticeably spruced-up Gavin as we at long last reached the central city.

    “Yes,” Ms Forrest agreed. “That’s the parking building, just over there, but I dunno about turning here, I think we’ll have to go right round the block.”

    “Ooh, Hungry Jack’s!” he discerned as we passed a large emporium sporting this name.

    “I thought you liked McDonald’s better?” his aunt replied.

    Agreeing he did, Master Forrest subsided, for the nonce.

    —She was indeed, it had transpired during the journey down from the hills, his aunt. Her much older brother, Kevin, and his wife, Margie, had died when, as Gavin had told me, he was only three. A scuba-diving accident, somewhere called the Whitsundays. Kevin and Margie, said Kevin’s sister with a sigh, were risk-takers.

    “We got a photo of them in their diving gear, eh, Cassie?” the tactless brat put in at this point.

    “Mm.”

    The rest of the family had consisted of the then seventeen-year-old Cassie and her parents. Now at retirement age—quite. Reading not far between the lines, it wasn’t just since the grandparents had gone down to the city to hunt for a retirement home that Cassie had been saddled with Master Gavin. What had she been planning to do with her life, I wondered, before disaster struck the family? I didn’t ask, it would have been too unkind. They had all, apparently, loved life at Trethewin—well, that was something. She didn’t ask what I intended for the place—afraid to, poor girl, clearly. Shit.

    In the wake of that day’s culinary delights I can now report that Australian McDonald’s outlets have failed signally to maintain the standards of their parent company. Certainly the famous meat patties were tastier than the American equivalents. The famous special sauce was quite correct. The lettuce, as usual, was a beautifully dry chiffonade, not over-crisp, not limp, and with God-knows-what done to it to keep it that way. The bottoms of the buns, however, were stone-cold. I’ll admit the French fries looked to be McDonald’s standard and were lapped up by Gavin. His aunt just smiled palely and accepted his generous offer of one or two. I avoided them, I dislike over-salted matchsticks composed of reconstituted potato starch.

    The coffees were the highlight of the meal, for us adults. I looked at her in astonishment.

    “Yes,” she said weakly, “their coffee isn’t bad. They have to compete with the Adelaide café scene, you see.”

    “Uh-huh. The Hilton’s espresso was excellent, come to think of it.”

    “Was it? Good on them. –What? No, Gavin, if you want a Wendy’s ice cream you can’t have a soft-freeze!”

    “Then a thickshake,” he said with a melting smile.

    “You know perfectly well, Gavin Forrest, that all they are is solid soft-freeze! Don’t try it on with me!”

    He sighed. “Then can I get another Coke?”

    “How far is it to the Hyatt?” she demanded of me.

    “Er—well, you probably know the town better than I do. I think it’s, um, on the far side of the main street from here. On—er—North Terrace?”

    “Oh, yeah! I know! It’s the one near the railway station!” she realised. “Um, lessee… Well, with the traffic lights, ten minutes’ walk? I’m not risking it.”

    She’d left me panting several miles in her wake, but Gavin seemed to get the point: he reddened angrily and cried: “That’s not far! Anyway, I won’t need to!”

    “Not flamin’ half.”

    I suddenly got it, and laughed. “With two Cokes and an ice cream sloshing around inside you? The ten-year-old bladder isn’t infinitely expandable, you know!”

    “I could go here,” he said hopefully, eying his aunt.

    She went very red. “No.”

    “When me an’ Gramps went there were no stranger dangers.”

    “You had Gramps with you, you idiot, and I’m not risking it!”

    “I could take him,” I said meekly. “Unless you’re afraid I’m a stranger danger.”

    “Of course you’re not, Mr Cartwright!” she gulped, redder than ever.

    “Thank you. Perhaps in that case you could call me Alex?”

    “Okay, Alex,” she agreed gruffly. “I’m Cassie.”

    Cassie. Lovely, frank, honest as the day was long, the sort of girl who would sacrifice herself for her brother’s orphaned child, and, alas, at twenty-four, eighteen years younger than me.

    “You can take me, eh, Alex?” Gavin persisted.

    “Er—before or after that second Coke?” I replied feebly.

    “Um, maybe I don’t really need it,” he muttered.

    I got up, only just managing not to roll my eyes to High Heaven. “Come on.”

    Oddly enough he didn’t argue.

    “I know it’s a rude question between chaps,” I said when I’d forced him to wash his hands, “but what the Hell did you have to drink before we left?”

    He glared. “Same as you!”

    Uh… Oh. One large tumbler of iced lime. “Got it,” I sighed.

    “You went, too,” he pointed out aggrievedly.

    “Yes. That was a precautionary measure. I’ve got to see a fruity-voiced lawyer this afternoon, and I don’t fancy being caught short.”

    He thought it over. “Nah—I getcha. Is he, like, fruity-voiced?”

    Obligingly I replied in a fruity voice: “Terribly fruity-voiced, Gavin, mate.”

    Promptly he fell all over himself laughing.

    “What’s the joke?” asked Cassie as we returned to the table.

    Gavin eyed me sideways.

    “Man-talk,” I replied loftily. “Ready?”

    “Do you mean I have to come?”

    “Only if you want to be able to use the bank account.”

    “Ugh. That lawyer you’re gonna meet, he’s the one that appears before Royal Commissions for two thou’ an hour, Dad reckons. We saw him on TV.”

    “At the house, Gran and Gramps’s TV, not the real big one, Gran says that belongs to you now,” noted Gavin regretfully.

    “Shut up, Gavin,” she sighed.

    “I thought it was barristers rather than solicitors who appeared before Royal Commissions, Cassie?” I said as she reluctantly got up.

    “Um, I think it is. –Oh, I see what you mean! –No,” she said, smiling at me. “It’s not like in Britain. They qualify as both, here, when they do their law degree,”

    “Ri-ight. But it still means I’ll be bringing in the big guns?”

    “I’ll say!” she agreed with a shudder.

    “Jolly good! –All right, Wendy’s fan, lead the way.”

    He led, alas, the way.

    Yes, well. I had said we’d all have ice creams—apparently. So we all had to. No, there was nothing wrong with the ice cream. And yes, it was a very hot day, with the prospect of a ten minutes’ walk, barring traffic lights, in front of us. My cholesterol count, however, did not need ice cream. Not at my age.

    We duly walked. It’s a charming walk along their North Terrace, past a pretty little concert hall, the art gallery, museum, and public library—not so charming, with a large glass excrescence protruding from the rear of a lovely old Edwardian building. Incongruously, alas, some hugely tall, modern steel, er, flagpole-like structures, possibly designed as banner holders, were featured along the pavement outside these cultural facilities, swearing deafeningly at the prevailing Edwardian architecture.

    Then it was past a completely charming little cream building on the corner—Edwardian but with a certain Georgian restraint. The old Institute building, Cassie said. It appeared to hold a cricket exhibition.

    “Ooh! Don Bradman!” breathed Master Forrest reverently, eyes on stalks.

    “We’re not going in: Alex has got an appointment,” returned his aunt firmly. “And don’t run across that road!” She grabbed him.

    “I’m not! I’m waiting for the lights!” he lied valiantly.

    “So even the younger generation remembers the great Bradman?” I murmured.

    “Yeah: you’re Downunder now, mate!” the treacherous woman replied, collapsing in ecstatic giggles.

    Trying very hard not to laugh, I replied: “If I was to mention the word Bodyline—?”

    She gulped. “If you mention it in a pub I think you’d be lynched, Alex!”

    “Got i—” I grabbed him by the tee-shirt just as he was about to immolate himself under an oncoming taxi. “Never mind what the lights say: look both ways first, okay?”

    “It wasn’t me! It was him!”

    I looked both ways and dragged him across forcibly, Cassie hippity-hopping along beside us. “That’s why one looks both ways, you benighted ass. Only if one wants to survive, of course.”

    “Yeah, hah, hah.”

    “Um, these lights ahead are much, much worse,” Cassie admitted in a hollow voice.

    … Omigod. This was the intersection where my taxi driver of yesterday hadn't been able to turn right. Technically it was one long road crossed by another, hah bloody hah. Trams, strange curved lines painted all over the road, extremely strange sweeping curves of tramlines crossing them, something huge painted on the macadam which if read from the right angle probably said BUSES... And a long row of stops for the said bloody great vehicles within a yard of the crossing, just opposite where we stood. That was not the worst of it, however. The worst—and very dangerous—was the turning lane, hard right, that had been cut into the corner on which we stood, isolating a small pedestrian island before the lights. This arrangement meant that vehicles turning off from the extremely busy road did not have to obey the lights: just when you thought the traffic had been stopped they could swoop round on top of you. The situation was, unbelievably, made even worse by the fact that the near side of the corner was not in fact the edge of the pavement, but a wide driveway to some large residence sheltering behind well established trees: the sort of driveway down which a car might come just as you were peering ahead to see if those lights were going to change. Christ. It was a total shambles. Everything the modern traffic engineer could do wrong had been done.

    “The tram line extension was only completed earlier this year,” said Cassie without enthusiasm. “They reckon there’s a scheme to run them all along this end of North Terrace as well.”

    I goggled at the frightful mess on the road. “Jesus!”

    “Yeah. Um, I think these lights are gonna change. Gavin, take Alex’s hand and don’t let go.”

    “I’m not a baby!”

    “Do it!”

    He did it.

    We reached the Hyatt intact, but I’m blessed if I know how. We had to run across the wide crossing, Cassie warning there wasn’t time for an average human being to walk. She was right: there wasn’t. God save me from ever having to live in this apology for a city, I thought, the more so as the only shade all along the baking hot North Terrace as far as the frightful crossing had been a few widely separated street trees.

    We went straight up to my room. Possibly I should have stopped and asked if there was a visitor for me, as it was nearly two, but ye gods!

    “Sit down,” I sighed. “I’m going to have a cool shower. If the phone rings please answer it.”

    They sat down looking overawed, their eyes firmly fixed on the Hyatt’s room phone, and I tottered into the bathroom.

    I did feel better after the shower, though the realisation that all my clean clothes were of course back in the bedroom took me down a peg or two. I swathed myself in terrycloth and staggered out.

    “Sorry. Forgot I’d need clothes,” I muttered.

    Gavin collapsed in splutters.

    “Yeah, hah, hah. –Oh, God,” I sighed as the phone rang.

    “I’ll get it!” Before I could move, he was up and grabbing it. I was turned to stone, and I rather think his aunt was, too.

    “Yeah gidday,” he said jauntily. “This is Mr Cartwright’s room. Who? Aw—right. –Yeah, okay, I’ll tell him!” With this he hung up while we were still paralysed.

    “He said,” he reported, “that Mr Zeff is waiting for you in the lobby. –Is that a name?”

    “Yes,” said Cassie faintly.

    “Yes,” I agreed: “that’s the man I’m meeting. I’d better get dressed. Excuse me.”

    Gavin’s eyes bored into me while I selected garments. “Why does he have to get changed?” he was asking as I escaped to the bathroom.

    After all that, the afternoon with the fruity-voiced Mr Zeff, do please call him Andrew, was positively a rest-cure. For me, anyway. I don’t think poor Cassie uttered a word, apart from “Hullo” and “Yes”. And Gavin definitely didn’t utter. The fruity voice alone would have done it, I think, but the navy pin-striped gents’ suiting, the gold gents’ jewellery, the gents’ aftershave and the meaty handshake really finished the poor kid off.

    My tactics had worked, however, and we finally emerged from the bank with a wad of cash in hand, a promise that credit cards would be expedited, Zeff looking smug, and the manager almost bowing. Plus with a warm invitation to me to dine with the Zeffs next Saturday. During the course of the afternoon the fellow had managed to assure me that he and his wife were keen on wine, they knew Trethewin Estate well—often “popped up” to the cellar door, and could recommend the ’04 Special Reserve Bin Shiraz, it’d repay keeping, though of course not in the same class as Penfolds Grange—that they were avid collectors of Asian art—quite a nice little collection of ukiyo-e, and a few pleasant pieces of pottery, old and new, he was sure I’d enjoy their antique tea bowls (plural)—and that of course they were Friends of the Art Gallery. Gavin’s eyes had become glued to him at this point and I prayed silently, but no-one was listening upstairs, and he refrained from asking the bloody man how a person could possibly be a friend of a gallery or, indeed, vice versa, which might, come to think of it, have been even better.

    Meaty farewell handshakes took place all round, Gavin into the bargain being awarded a pat on the head, which duly made him squirm, and the fruity-voiced lawyer, having informed us chummily that of course “the Club” was “just around the corner”, slung his hook.

    “Where are we?” asked Gavin immediately.

    Good question.

    “Here,” said his aunt weakly.

    “Hah, hah.”

    “Gavin, you can’t get lost in central Adelaide, it’s all, um, criss-crossing streets,” she ended weakly.

    “Laid out in a grid,” I murmured.

    “Yes. It’s a Wakefield Plan,” she informed me. “All the greedy interests have done their best to nibble away at the parklands ever since, mind you—and you should see what they’ve done to the Adelaide Oval, Dad threw a fit!—but it’s still the basic layout, with the main square and then smaller ones kind of, um, at its corners.”

    “Yes,” I agreed. “But,” I said with a laugh, “I know of one little pocket where you could get hopelessly lost in a maze of tiny cul-de-sacs! You met Jim Hawkes, didn’t you?”

    “Yes, the nice man that said up-front not to pin our hopes on the cops finding Tony Brownloe.”

    “That sounds like Jim,” I said, smiling. “It’s the complex that his office is in that I’m thinking of. I can tell you vaguely where it is, but getting in and out of it can only be accomplished by the most experienced of taxi drivers!” I endeavoured to elaborate.

    She laughed. “It sounds lovely! Human!”

    “That’s what I thought!” I agreed.

    We beamed at each other…

    “How can ya be a friend of a gallery?”

    We both jumped.

    “What?” she said vaguely, very flushed.

    “How can ya be a friend of a gallery? –That man, he said him and his wife are friends of the Gallery!”

    “Um, I think it’s like a sort of club, Gavin,” she said vaguely.

    “More or less,” I agreed. “You have to shell out megabucks to join, and at intervals they hold dinners for which they charge something like five thousand per ticket. Depending on the size and prestige of the gallery.”

    “Five thousand dollars for a ticket?” she gasped. “That can’t be right!”

    “I meant pounds. But here, I’d say five thousand dollars would be about right. What’s left after the gourmet food, the vintage wines, the caterers’ fees, and very possibly the hire of the venue, unless they have it at the gallery itself, then goes towards funding the art.” I shrugged.

    “What? That’s mad! If they want to fund art—”

    “They don’t, Cassie. They want to see and be seen and have their names in the Society pages and be on the right lists.”

    “Lists what of?” asked ten years old.

    “Lists of rich people to be invited to the next super-expensive wing-ding, Gavin,” I explained.

    “Barmy,” he said definitely.

    “Yes.”

    “Do you mean to say that there really are people in Adelaide who’d shell out that sort of dough for—for that sort of social-climbing nonsense?” asked his aunt dazedly.

    “Yes. Well, Zeff’s manner, clothes and gents’ jewellery alone should have told you that, Cassie. Not to mention that well-fed, meaty face.”

    “Mm… I suppose some of the people that the Croziers knew were like that, now i come to think of it, but of course we didn’t have much to do with them.”

    “Do you do it?” asked Gavin, the eyes narrowing.

    “No. Prefer to chuck my money away on three-legged nags that I enter optimistically for races in which they limp home last, three hours after the rest of the field.”

    “Yeah, hah, hah. But ya do buy horses, eh?”

    “A few, yes.”

    “Ralph said maybe you’d wanna buy Richmond of Trethewin, only ya didn’t, didja?”

    “No. I thought about it, but two early wins and a third as a three-year-old weren’t enough. I don’t think he’s capable of that last spurt, when it comes to the crunch.”

    “Nah, I think ya right,” he decided. “Gramps lost twenny bucks on him, last time he ran at Morphettville.”

    “Never mind that!” said Cassie briskly. “I know where we are, we just turn right and we’re practically in Rundle Mall.”

    It wasn’t a covered mall, it was a long pedestrian thoroughfare, open to the elements and with almost no shade.

    “Ooh, near McDon—”

    “No, down the other end, and you’ve had your treats, today. –The parking building’s just across from the other end of it, Alex.”

    Mm. And by my calculations, a two minutes’ walk straight down to the end of this main street and then a left turn at that snarl of tram lines and traffic lights would take us to the Hyatt and a civilised drink. Oh, well.

    We headed for the parking building in the heat.

    Something over two and a half hours later we were back at Trethewin, after a brief stop-off in the local village. There was something that called itself a supermarket but was really only a small grocery store made self-serve. The unlovely fat man behind the cash register glowered at poor Cassie and grunted: “Cash only.”

    “Yes,” she said in a small voice. “Um, I’m sorry, Mr Matthews. We had no idea he was running up big bills.”

    “As I understand it,” I said in a hard voice, “it has always been the custom of Trethewin Stables to purchase on account. None of this is Ms Forrest’s fault, and if you wish to keep Trethewin custom, I suggest you apologise to her.”

    “Oh, do ya? An’ what flamin’ business is it of yours, mate?”

    “He’s the new owner, Mr Matthews!” said Cassie quickly.

    He eyed me with dislike. “Right. Seen the colour of ’is money, have yer?”

    “YES!” shouted Gavin, suddenly turning puce. “He’s got loads and loads of money, all different colours, see! And the bank man, he said to the lady, make it mixed fifties and hundreds, see, an’ I’m never gonna buy no stupid Magnums no more!” He rushed outside.

    “It’s a chocolate-coated ice cream on a stick, Alex,” said Cassie limply. “Horribly rich.”

    “I see. Well, shall we pay for the stuff you need right away and then shake the dust?”

    “Yes, let’s,” she agreed in relief.

    I outed with the wallet, now stuffed with Australian hundreds and fifties. The bloody man glared but took the dough, noting sourly: “He paid up at first, too.”

    “You see what we’re up against?” said Cassie on a note of despair as we emerged into the sunshine.

    “Yes, I do. Well, Jim Hawkes is on the job, but realistically there’s not much hope of finding the damned crook. Hell of a pity no-one had a photo of him.”

    “He hated having his photo taken. I suppose it should have warned me,” she said dully.

    Gavin had been working off his anger by jumping viciously on and off the pavement edge. Now he came over to us, panting slightly. “I’ve got one!”

    “You have not,” she sighed.

    “I have! In my camera!”

    Cassie winced.

    “I have! He was looking at ole Ring-a-Ding, see, and telling that man that might of wanted to buy him what a good horse he was in his day. Um, well, it’s really of Ring-a-Ding, he was looking all shiny, Tony’d done ’im up for the man—but you c’n see him!” he ended on a defiant note.

    Cassie sighed again. “He’s got this blimmin’ digital camera, it’s an old one that Ralph passed onto him.”

    “It works!”

    “Yeah, it works and you can’t get the pictures out of it,” she replied on a sour note. “Mum wanted some snaps for her album, you see, Alex, and they took some, and that was it.”

    “Er… We passed a place in the big Adelaide mall advertising prints, Cassie,” I said cautiously.

    “It hasn’t got any plugs or anything.”

    Technical. “Mm. Well, I’ll take a look at it. If you have got a photo of Brownloe, Gavin—”

    “I have!”

    “Good, well, Jim Hawkes will definitely be able to—uh—get it out for you. His staff know all about that sort of thing. Spy cameras and all,” I ended unwisely.

    That did it. We got spy cameras slash James Bond all the way back to Trethewin.

    After the groceries—including two big tubs of ice cream—had been put away, we sat down with cold glasses of Rose’s lime and the ceiling fan on, and after the obligatory gulping and gasping, Gavin rushed off to find his camera.

    “Don’t expect too much,” Cassie warned.

    “I won’t. Perhaps I could see the horses after that, or—er—is it time for your dinner?”

    “Sort of. There’s no hurry. Now I’ve got some ham and tomatoes we can have those and I can boil up some of those potatoes and make some potato salad. Um, you do want to stay, do you?” she asked, suddenly going very pink.

    “Er—I’d like to, Cassie, but I don’t think I’d better: I don’t fancy driving back to Adelaide in the dark.”

    “No, of course not. Or, um, you could stay the night at the house, I mean it’s yours now. Everything’s ready. The clean sheets’ll be in the linen cupboard, I can make up the bed for you, no worries.”

    “Er—I did buy it furnished… You mean they’ve left everything?” I croaked.

    “Leanne took a little antique desk, I think, and Jenny—that’s Ralph’s sister—she took her stuff. But they left everything else. Ralph’s mother didn’t want anything, she was never interested in the place. I thought Ralph would at least want the paintings of the horses, I mean, he grew up with the stud, but he said they had nowhere to put them, and, um, Leanne said they were frightful daubs,” she admitted, very pink.

    “I see. Well, good. I might as well stay, in that case, and have a good look at the winery tomorrow.”

    “Yes. Well, at least he didn’t get his mitts on that!”

    “Uh—oh: Brownloe: no.”

    “Ralph didn’t want it, either. He said he liked drinking it but wine isn’t Crozier’s core business and never has been, and he’s got better things to do than make sure he hasn’t got another rip-off artist on his hands. I tried to tell him they’re two of the most decent guys you could hope to meet—but he knows that, really; it was Leanne putting the pressure on him, I think.”

    “Uh-huh. That’s what Jim’s spies concluded, too.”

    She laughed.

    And that was it for laughter at Trethewin. Gavin bounced back into the room and shoved his camera under my nose.

    “See!”

    I saw. I felt the blood drain from my cheeks and the skin turn to goose flesh.

    “What’s the matter, Alex?” gasped Cassie. “You look dreadful!”

    The photo of the smiling man with his hand on the neck of an elderly brown gelding might or might not have been of Antony (Tony) Brownloe. It was, however, most certainly of Broderick Anson, the man who’d run off with my wife.

Next chapter:

https://deadringers-trethewin.blogspot.com/2025/07/fakes.html